ARCHIVE / Corrigenda
- Home Page 340
Friday Footnote
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send [email protected] a request for subscription details.
Faraday Challenge
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send [email protected] a request for subscription details.
ARCHIVE / Life Safety Code 2003 – 2018
“Reading Boy” | Eastman Johnson (1863)
The Life Safety Code addresses those construction, protection, and occupancy features necessary to minimize danger to life from the effects of fire, including smoke, heat, and toxic gases created during a fire. It is widely incorporated by reference into public safety statutes; typically coupled with the consensus products of the International Code Council. It is a mighty document — one of the NFPA’s leading titles — so we deal with it in pieces; consulting it for decisions to be made for the following:
(1) Determination of the occupancy classification in Chapters 12 through 42.
(2) Determination of whether a building or structure is new or existing.
(3) Determination of the occupant load.
(4) Determination of the hazard of contents.
There are emergent issues — such as active shooter response, integration of life and fire safety systems on the internet of small things — and recurrent issues such as excessive rehabilitation and conformity criteria and the ever-expanding requirements for sprinklers with which to reckon. It is never easy telling a safety professional paid to make a market for his product or service that it is impossible to be alive and safe. It is even harder telling the dean of a department how much it will cost to bring the square-footage under his stewardship up to current code.
The 2018 edition is the current edition and is accessible below:
NFPA 101 Life Safety Code Free Public Access
The original University of Michigan codes and standards advocacy enterprise has been advocating in NFPA 101 since the early 2000’s. Since late 2016 most of the expertise remains with the reconstructed enterprise described in our ABOUT.
Since the Life Safety Code is one of the most “living” of living documents — the International Building Code and the National Electric Code are also moving continuously — we can practically start anywhere and anytime and still make meaningful contributions to it. Sample transcripts of activity relevant to education communities are linked below:
Transcript: 2021 Life Safety Code Public Input
Transcript: 2021 Life Safety Code Public Comment
This is just one chapter. Note the concern for classroom door locking systems. Chapters involving daycare, places of assembly, healthcare and laboratory settings. All of these occupancy classes are common in education communities. Titles developed to meet market demand for building safety at the international level originate from ISO Technical Committee 92 Fire Safety.
We are neither primarily code instructors nor code evangelists so we place NFPA 101 farther down our priority ranking until the beginning of the 2024 revision cycle; sometime early in 2021. The best time to prepare suggestions for improvement, however, are at the end of a revision cycle such as we are now. Until then we deal with it in pieces by maintaining live public consultation notices on the standing agendas of our Housing, Prometheus and Security teleconferences. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
University of California San Diego Living & Learning Neighborhood | CLICK ON IMAGE TO LAUNCH VIDEO
Posted April 15, 2019
As described in previous posts, the first stage of Life Safety Code development was completed on June 26th. The second stage begins on February 27, 2019 with the formal release of the First Draft Report on February 27, 2019; according to the developmental schedule linked below:
2021 NFPA 101 Life Safety Code Development Schedule
We have been following the flow of concepts and have identified several from Chapter 14 (New Education Facilities) that should be high on the agenda of the education facilities industry. Note that most of them propose preventive remedies for active shooter casualties.
NFPA 101 Public Input No. 288-NFPA 101-2018 [ New Section after 14.3.4.3.1.3 ]
NFPA 101 Public Input No. 44-NFPA 101-2018 [ Sections 14.3.4.2, 14.3.4.3 ]
NFPA 101 Public Input No. 415-NFPA 101-2018 [ Section No. 14.1.2.4 ]
NFPA 101 Public Input No. 218-NFPA 101-2018 [ New Section after 14.2.2.2.3.3 ]
NFPA 101 Public Input No. 187-NFPA 101-2018 [ Section No. 14.2.2.2.4 ]
NFPA 101 Public Input No. 217-NFPA 101-2018 [ Section No. 14.2.2.2.4 ]
There are others. Note that most of the public input in related Chapter 15 (Existing Education Facilities) track the concepts that appear in Chapter 14. Comments are due May 8, 2019.
The original University of Michigan standards advocacy enterprise began leading advocacy in NFPA 101 in the 2009 revision cycle. Tenure in the standards space is significant because many life safety concepts, even when original, take 6 to 9 years to be accepted and, in many states, take another 3 to 12 years to become incorporated by reference into enforceable public safety law in all 50 states. We advocate in nearly 100 standards suites and in 1000 individual documents developing globally and we find NFPA 101 among those standards that are remarkable for the “long runway” of its safety concepts.
It is worthwhile noting the breakdown of education industry presence on NFPA 101 technical committees (i.e. individuals who are on the direct payroll of a school district, college or university):
University of Texas at Austin (User)
Drexel University (Enforcement)
University of Maryland (Enforcement & Special Expert)
Oklahoma State University (Special Expert).
University of Kentucky (User)
John Jay College of Criminal Justice (Special Expert)
University of Michigan (User)
Indiana University (User)
Emory University (Enforcement)
Some universities are large enough that they have both a User Interest and an Enforcement interest which can lead to challenges in reconciling safety and cost issues within the same university. In any case, investment in expertise in contributes to the long term safety and sustainability goals of the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States — the US education industry.
Because of the sudden disruption of the standards advocacy enterprise in July 2016 (See ABOUT), we were only able to a limited number of proposals; most of which focused on structural changed to the Education Facility chapters. Access to the Standards Michigan NFPA workspace is available to subscribers. (Contact [email protected]). We are happy to share these proposals online any day during our standing 11 AM live access teleconference, or again during our monthly fire protection meeting, See our CALENDAR for the next teleconference; always at the same time (11:00 AM Eastern Time); always with the same login credentials at the upper right of our home page; and always open to everyone.
The NFPA Annual Conference happens in San Antonio, Texas; June 17-20. Many technical committees meet during this conference and we encourage our colleagues in the region to attend.
Issue: [18-90]
Category: Fire Safety, Public Safety
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Josh Elvove, Joe DeRosier
Link to legacy workspace: Fire Protection for the Education Facilities Industry
When lives are at stake, alternative approaches are welcome. #LifeSafety #AlternativeApproaches #Code #NFPA101 @NFPA
https://t.co/JvWyyZtuLP— ANSI (@ansidotorg) December 20, 2018
Posted June 1, 2018
North Idaho College
The Life Safety Code — a regulatory product developed by the National Fire Protection Association — is the most widely used source for strategies to protect people based on building construction, protection, and occupancy features that minimize the effects of fire and related hazards. It is the only document that covers life safety in both new and existing structures. It forms the template for another NFPA product — NFPA 5000: Building Construction and Safety Code — which is a competitor product to the International Code Council’s flagship document: International Building Code.
The education industry is the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States (LEARN MORE HERE) — logging in about $80 billion annually in construction spend; a number that may be confirmed anecdotally with the unending presence of cranes and construction crews on US campuses all year long.
With our tenure in education facility codes and standards advocacy for over 20 years (see ABOUT) we continue to advocate in both the ICC and NFPA standards suites. We encourage all other education industry trade associations to support subject matter experts (front line working point professionals in the life safety disciplines) to contribute.
We have been advocating in this document since the 2003 edition in which we submitted candidate code changes such as the following:
• Student residence facility life safety crosswalk between NFPA 101 and IBC
• Refinements to Chapters 14 and 15 covering education facilities
• Identification of an ingress path for rescue and recovery personnel toward electric service equipment installations.
• Risk-informed requirement for installation of grab bars in bathing areas
• Modification of the 90 minute emergency lighting requirements rule for small buildings and for fixed interval testing
• Modification of emergency illumination fixed interval testing
• Table 7.3.1 Occupant Load revisions
• Harmonization of egress path width with European building codes
There are others. It is typically difficult to make changes to any consensus standard though some of the concepts were integrated by the committee into other parts of the NFPA 101 in unexpected, though productive, ways.
Public input is due June 27, 2018. We reach out to facility managers, subject matter experts and trade associations — collaborating where possible – but at least reporting on the progress made on behalf of the user/owner/final fiduciary in this industry. This document is a standing item on our weekly (Wednesday 11 AM Eastern) Open Door teleconference to which everyone is welcomed. Click here to log in.
Issue: [18-90]
Category: Fire Safety, Public Safety
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Josh Elvove, Joe DeRosier
Link to legacy workspace: Fire Protection for the Education Facilities Industry
Hosting Service
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send [email protected] a request for subscription details.
Standard for Wildland Firefighting
University of California Davis | Fire Halted Outside Primate Center’s Fence Line
As “cities-within-cities” college and universities present a risk aggregation that cannot be de-coupled from the host municipality. Most large universities depend upon municipal fire safety infrastructure — i.e. the local “water grid”. For physical assets that are located far off-campus, however; the university either has a safety infrastructure relationship with another unit of government — a township or a village — or the educational institution must build its own on-site fire protection system.
As with fire safety practice on the central campus; fire prevention in off campus facilities is the first step. The backdrop of chronic, seasonal wildfires in north and southern hemisphere inspire a revisit of NFPA 1143 Standard for Wildland Fire Management, a consensus document that has evolved from leading practice discovery dating back to 1934. It is a management document and, as such, expectations for technical specifics regarding planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance should be limited. The substance of legacy NFPA consensus products — Standard for Wildfire Control and Standard for Protection of Life and Property from Wildfire — have been conveyed into a configured product NFPA 1140 Standards for Wildland Firefighting.
Public input for the next edition is linked below:
There are no user interests in any of the technical panels affiliated with education communities. Some of the concepts in play:
Substantial expansion of definitions
Updated reference material
Auxiliary fire mains
Qualifications and Management
Building separation
Sprinkler systems
…And so on…Fairly canonical stuff in the fire protection domain though concern for animals in husbandry and agricultural programs keeps this title on our radar.
Comments are due October 9th.
We keep the entire NFPA catalog on the agenda of our Prometheus and Disaster colloquia. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [18-322]
Category: Fire Safety, Public Safety
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Josh Elvove, Joe DeRosier
More
College campuses closed by 2018 California wildfires
Camp Fire smoke closes UC-Berkeley and other Bay Area colleges
California universities extend application deadline for students affected by wildfires
Fire Halted Outside Primate Center’s Fence Line – UC Davis https://t.co/3frlXozZD5
— Standards Michigan (@StandardsMich) November 17, 2018
Data Point / Universities & Colleges in the United States by county
This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send [email protected] a request for subscription details.
Readings / The Education of Henry Adams
“…For generation after generation, Adamses and Brookses and Boylstons and Gorhams had gone to Harvard College, and although none of them, as far as known, had ever done any good there, or thought himself the better for it, custom, social ties, convenience, and above all economy kept each generation in the track. Any other education would have required a serious effort, but no one took Harvard College seriously. All went there because their friends went there and the College was their ideal of social self-respect.
Harvard College, as far as it educated at all, was a mild and liberal school which sent young men into the world with all they needed to make respectable citizens and something of what they wanted to make useful ones. Leaders of men it never tried to make. Its ideals were altogether different. The Unitarian clergy had given to the College a character of moderation, balance, judgment, restraint, what the French called mesure: excellent traits which the College attained with singular success so that its graduates could commonly be recognized by the stamp, but such a type of character rarely lent itself to autobiography. Four years of Harvard College, if successful, resulted in an autobiographical blank, a mind on which only a watermark had been stamped.
The stamp, as such things went, was a good one. The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught. Sometimes in afterlife, Adams debated whether in fact it had not ruined him and most of his companions, but disappointment apart, Harvard College was probably less hurtful than any other university then in existence. It taught little, and that little ill, but it left the mind open, free from bias, ignorant of facts, but docile. The graduate had few strong prejudices. He knew little but his mind remained supple, ready to receive knowledge.
The class of 1858, to which Henry Adams belonged, was a typical collection of young New Englanders, quietly penetrating and aggressively commonplace; free from meannesses, jealousies, intrigues, enthusiasms, and passions; not exceptionally quick; not consciously skeptical; singularly indifferent to display, artifice, florid expression, but not hostile to it when it amused them; distrustful of themselves, but little disposed to trust anyone else; with not much humor of their own, but full of readiness to enjoy the humor of others; negative to a degree that in the long run became positive and triumphant. Not harsh in manners or judgment, rather liberal and open-minded, they were still as a body the most formidable critics one would care to meet in a long life exposed to criticism. They never flattered, seldom praised; free from vanity, they were not intolerant of it; but they were objectiveness itself; their attitude was a law of nature; their judgment beyond appeal, not an act either of intellect or emotion or of will but a sort of gravitation.
This was Harvard College incarnate, but even for Harvard College, the class of 1858 was somewhat extreme. Of unity this band of nearly one hundred young men had no keen sense, but they had equally little energy of repulsion. They were pleasant to live with, and above the average of students—German, French, English, or whatnot—but chiefly because each individual appeared satisfied to stand alone. It seemed a sign of force; yet to stand alone is quite natural when one has no passions, still easier when one has no pains.
If the student got little from his mates, he got little more from his masters. The four years passed at college were, for his purposes, wasted. Harvard College was a good school, but at bottom what the boy disliked most was any school at all. He did not want to be one in a hundred—1 percent of an education. He regarded himself as the only person for whom his education had value, and he wanted the whole of it. He got barely half of an average. Long afterward, when the devious path of life led him back to teach in his turn what no student naturally cared or needed to know, he diverted some dreary hours of faculty meetings by looking up his record in the class lists and found himself graded precisely in the middle. In the one branch he most needed—mathematics—barring the few first scholars, failure was so nearly universal that no attempt at grading could have had value, and whether he stood fortieth or ninetieth must have been an accident or the personal favor of the professor. Here his education failed lamentably. At best he could never have been a mathematician, at worst he would never have cared to be one; but he needed to read mathematics, like any other universal language, and he never reached the alphabet.
Beyond two or three Greek plays, the student got nothing from the ancient languages. Beyond some incoherent theories of free trade and protection, he got little from political economy. He could not afterward remember to have heard the name of Karl Marx mentioned, or the title of Capital. He was equally ignorant of Auguste Comte. These were the two writers of his time who most influenced its thought. The bit of practical teaching he afterward reviewed with most curiosity was the course in chemistry, which taught him a number of theories that befogged his mind for a lifetime. The only teaching that appealed to his imagination was a course of lectures by Louis Agassiz on the glacial period and palaeontology, which had more influence on his curiosity than the rest of the college instruction altogether. The entire work of the four years could have been easily put into the work of any four months in afterlife.
Harvard College was a negative force, and negative forces have value. Slowly it weakened the violent political bias of childhood, not by putting interests in its place, but by mental habits which had no bias at all. It would also have weakened the literary bias if Adams had been capable of finding other amusement, but the climate kept him steady to desultory and useless reading, till he had run through libraries of volumes which he forgot even to their title pages. Rather by instinct than by guidance, he turned to writing, and his professors or tutors occasionally gave his English composition a hesitating approval; but in that branch, as in all the rest, even when he made a long struggle for recognition, he never convinced his teachers that his abilities, at their best, warranted placing him on the rank list, among the first third of his class. Instructors generally reach a fairly accurate gauge of their scholars’ powers. Henry Adams himself held the opinion that his instructors were very nearly right, and when he became a professor in his turn and made mortifying mistakes in ranking his scholars, he still obstinately insisted that on the whole, he was not far wrong. Student or professor, he accepted the negative standard because it was the standard of the school…”
Selected Reviews
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwB pic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
— USPTO (@uspto) July 13, 2023
Standards Michigan Group, LLC
2723 South State Street | Suite 150
Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
888-746-3670
DIRECTIONS
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |